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OpenShot 1.2.2 Further Pushes Open-Source Video Editing

09-23-2010, 04:00 AM

Phoronix: OpenShot 1.2.2 Further Pushes Open-Source Video Editing

OpenShot, one of the popular and promising non-linear open-source video editing projects, is out today with their first major release in nearly a half-year. OpenShot 1.2.2 is this new release and it brings a number of new features and other bug-fixes as it attempts to close the gap between open and closed-source video editors...

I'm wondering, why OpenShot gets the news in Phoronix and Kdenlive, whose version 0.7.8 was released last (?) week, gets no attention. They are both non-linear open-source video editing programs and they both use mlt.

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OpenShot seems to forgo GStreamer in favor of FFMPEG and MLT. [Sarcasm] Spurning proper integration into the one true Linux desktop, GNOME. Not to mention spurning our DRM-loving, "proprietary plugin"-peddling and GPL-violating friends at Fluendo.[Sarcasm]

Actually, it's kind of scary how Redhat seems to have lost the desktop bet. With Meego having chosen Qt, it will be a slow and painful death for GNOME, GTK, Glib, GStreamer etc. Too bad for all the usability work and money that went into these.

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I'm wondering, why OpenShot gets the news in Phoronix and Kdenlive, whose version 0.7.8 was released last (?) week, gets no attention. They are both non-linear open-source video editing programs and they both use mlt.

I was wondering that myself, but to be fair I don't know whether there have been or not news items about kdenlive in Phoronix.

OpenShot is very nice. It's main developer knows how to create a community around a project. The progress of OpenShot has been quite interesting to follow, user suggestions and needs are listened to and it actually delivers. Kdenlive arguably aims for more professional features and it's more complete than OpenShot. I'm a complete newbie about video editing and yet I couldn't accomplish with OpenShot what I had in my head; with kdenlive it was easily done and is now my number one choice.

Recently I was shocked to find out that Linux already has more (free) options in the video editing arena than Windows. It used to be one of those things coming up in the typical OS wars threads (with Photoshop, audio, games, Office and so on). In my experience, not anymore. Recently I made some video I sent to my friends, who asked me what sort of tools are needed to produce something like it. After looking around I could only find a freeware, crap version of a commercial package, crippled down in terms of functionality and codecs available. Perhaps I missed something obvious, but ended up telling them to install Linux or put up with the price of a commercial package (sure, there's also illegal downloads but I don't recommend those).

Originally posted by stan

OpenShot seems to forgo GStreamer in favor of FFMPEG and MLT. [Sarcasm] Spurning proper integration into the one true Linux desktop, GNOME. Not to mention spurning our DRM-loving, "proprietary plugin"-peddling and GPL-violating friends at Fluendo.[Sarcasm]

Heh, yeah. The OpenShot guy has blogged about his move from GStreamer to MLT, quite an interesting read. Funny that even after all the reasons given somebody from GStreamer had the guts to post something about reconsidering his position for, you know, GStreamer is amazing and he probably was using it incorrectly. My experiences as a user are perhaps unrelated, but am I the only one who found literally everything related to GStreamer to be a train wreck? I'm sure I'm missing what GStreamer really is, how ffmpeg solves a different set of problems or...whatever. Everytime I read about somebody using Totem & co. a little bit of me dies.

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Heh, yeah. The OpenShot guy has blogged about his move from GStreamer to MLT, quite an interesting read. Funny that even after all the reasons given somebody from GStreamer had the guts to post something about reconsidering his position for, you know, GStreamer is amazing and he probably was using it incorrectly. My experiences as a user are perhaps unrelated, but am I the only one who found literally everything related to GStreamer to be a train wreck? I'm sure I'm missing what GStreamer really is, how ffmpeg solves a different set of problems or...whatever. Everytime I read about somebody using Totem & co. a little bit of me dies.

I am a Totem user. I am also learning gstreamer as a developer. I wrote my first video player in 15 minutes and 60 lines of Python code. If you want it simple, it is a simple API. If you want more, it is also a very big and flexible API, covering all your multimedia needs. The non-linear part of Gstreamer is very immature, so I'm not surprised that OpenShot ditched it. I'm also glad that the Pitivi developers instead choose to improve gnonlin, so that I may one day use a stable API when I develop non-linear cravings.

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One possible reason why some people think ffmpeg "sucks" is that half of the applications using it need to include a copy of one particular, often patched, version of ffmpeg in their source code, and that makes distribution packagers cry...

Personally, I wouldn't care if something else replaced GStreamer, but it would have to be modular like GStreamer, with some backwards & forwards compatibility rules, and the possibility to add/remove modules (e.g. codecs) without needing to recompile everything.

BTW: the ffmpeg project has some of the best codec developers in the world probably, and I thank all of them for that work, but it seems like many of them don't care about "average users", and as such it's often rather difficult to use their work in the real world (which has more "average users" than "developers").

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Those little editors (KDenLive, PiTiVi, OpenShot) are used as "litle Jesus" around here. It is quite false as they are a decade behind Cinelerra, the only professional OpenSource editor around. LightSpark is vaporware, I am not even sure the thing actually exist after doing more research on it.

Cinelerra, have more features than those 3 combined (double counts). Wake me up the day I can do a blue screen (kromakey) with three layer and use vectors to define area for object level color management. Or even just have a nice way to control X, Y, Z and Opacity of layers over time.

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I am a Totem user. I am also learning gstreamer as a developer. I wrote my first video player in 15 minutes and 60 lines of Python code. If you want it simple, it is a simple API. If you want more, it is also a very big and flexible API, covering all your multimedia needs. The non-linear part of Gstreamer is very immature, so I'm not surprised that OpenShot ditched it. I'm also glad that the Pitivi developers instead choose to improve gnonlin, so that I may one day use a stable API when I develop non-linear cravings.

Right, I see. On the other hand, I saw time and again how bad applications based on GStreamer were. In my case, the best possible scenario with a GStreamer based media player used to be that it didn't crash when opening a video, and then the performance was 2-3 times worse than ffmpeg. I just don't conceive preferring anything to mplayer. Of course, I assume gstreamer has improved in the last 2 years. Yet, my last data point is from a couple of weeks ago, when somebody suggested me a subtitle editor application based on gstreamer. I wasn't at all surprised when it couldn't open my videos. I've had enough of that nonsense; it's 2010, if I install something I expect it to make a fair attemp at doing what it says on the tin (which kde4's subtitle composer with any video backend except Gstreamer does). Don't get me wrong, if it works for you all the better, but I don't quite get why you are glad that Pitivi developers chose to improve gnonlin when there's already a superior and more mature framework for non-linear editing. The OpenShot developer, instead, didn't put up with it and thus was able to offer something that works and fills the basic needs of many users.

Originally posted by Elv13

Those little editors (KDenLive, PiTiVi, OpenShot) are used as "litle Jesus" around here. It is quite false as they are a decade behind Cinelerra, the only professional OpenSource editor around. LightSpark is vaporware, I am not even sure the thing actually exist after doing more research on it.

Cinelerra, have more features than those 3 combined (double counts). Wake me up the day I can do a blue screen (kromakey) with three layer and use vectors to define area for object level color management. Or even just have a nice way to control X, Y, Z and Opacity of layers over time.

That's quite an elitist position. Kdenlive and openshot (I don't know about PiTiVi), do what they intend to. Dismissing them because they are not professional editors makes no sense. Thanks to those editors, it is possible for people with modest needs (i.e. the majority of home users) to carry on, which is already more than what can be said for the Windows world unless you are happy to pay for a commercial solution. For people like me, Cinelerra was an overkill, unstable monster with which I couldn't do anything. For those who need more than Kdenlive, it's good news that Cinelerra exists; they play on different leagues. It's a bit like the Photoshop vs Gimp debates. Reading people's complains about the lack of certain advanced features in The Gimp (which no doubt it's true) would make you believe that everybody on the internet is a professional photographer.

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That's quite an elitist position. Kdenlive and openshot (I don't know about PiTiVi), do what they intend to. Dismissing them because they are not professional editors makes no sense. Thanks to those editors, it is possible for people with modest needs (i.e. the majority of home users) to carry on, which is already more than what can be said for the Windows world unless you are happy to pay for a commercial solution. For people like me, Cinelerra was an overkill, unstable monster with which I couldn't do anything. For those who need more than Kdenlive, it's good news that Cinelerra exists; they play on different leagues. It's a bit like the Photoshop vs Gimp debates. Reading people's complains about the lack of certain advanced features in The Gimp (which no doubt it's true) would make you believe that everybody on the internet is a professional photographer.

It was a rant against this statement from the article.

OpenShot 1.2.2 is this new release and it brings a number of new features and other bug-fixes as it attempts to close the gap between open and closed-source video editors.

There is no gap between open and closed apps. Jashaka, Cinelerra, LightSpark and Lumiera fill the pro niche quite well (well, only cinelerra, the other is bad+dead and Lumiera is not ready yet and LightSpark is vaporware). KDenLive aspire to be the Digikam of video, so good for normal users, but with a pro feature set. It is not there yet, but I try every release and new feature hoping it get stable (my normal needs are really simple, but sometime I like to do better vids and special effects). The two other are just trying to clone MovieMaker and, according to some peoples, are there to make Linux the best multimedia OS (it already is with apps ported from Unix/Irix, but those are closed apps, so they does not count).